India, United States Nuclear Deal: Has A Breakthrough Been Reached?
Dated 20/7/2007
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After four days of intensive negotiations between teams lead by Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon and US Undersecretary of State Nicolas Burns, wire reports are indicating that a breakthrough has been reached.
Press Trust of India quotes an anonymous senior Indian official "We have basically finalized the text but the document cannot be divulged."
It is to be assumed that the bureaucrat's on both sides will present the agreed upon document to the political leadership, or as in the Indian case, to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his Cabinet; and upon their approval it would be made public.
However interestingly, former External Affairs minister and senior Opposition leader Yashwant Sinha indicated that the Opposition would re-look and re-consider the deal if it were to come to power in New Delhi.
Senior officials said that if a formal announcement has not been made, it is only within "standard procedure", in that the whole exercise will have to move away from diplomats and civil servants to the higher political levels.